


it's a rattlesnake so i have to kill it

by thegatorgood



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, like a fucking fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:47:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegatorgood/pseuds/thegatorgood
Summary: You can't spend your whole life jerking off.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 10
Kudos: 119
Collections: CLOSE ENOUGH FEBRUARY 2020





	it's a rattlesnake so i have to kill it

**Author's Note:**

> For the surprise colleagues square. Everything I know about Bruges I learned from _In Bruges._
> 
> Title and summary from The Lonely Island’s “The Afterparty.”

Villanelle had been told to wait for the other assassins to show up with their target's details and whatever boring rules the client wanted them to follow, and normally she would have been so pissed, especially because who wanted to spend more time than was necessary in _Belgium_ , but it wasn’t nearly as boring as she’d expected. She'd had waffles for dinner and stolen a gondola and poled herself around the canals, and the beer here was really good. On the second day she'd gone to the top of this really tall medieval tower and thrown loose change at the Belgians in the square below. She liked Bruges.

Konstantin had said she would. Konstantin had told her to arrive early, check the place out. Konstantin had told her she'd been sulking since Rome, which was bullshit, because Villanelle did not sulk, and also she was fine with what had happened in Rome. She killed people on a whim all the time. That was why she was Konstantin's favorite. The spontaneity. 

But he was right about Bruges. She sent him thank-you delivery pastries but told the delivery man to leave no note and wear a balaclava, to keep things fresh and fun. "It is an old joke between him and me," she'd assured the delivery man. "He will be delighted."

She was almost disappointed when the day came that would bring the other contracted assassins and she would have to work with them. It was okay, Villanelle told herself, as she sat in a brasserie and waited for her new colleagues. It wasn't like she could never come back here. Also, if her colleagues were boring or annoying, she could kill them and do the job by herself. She took a sip of the golden, bubbling beer, and then nearly dropped the goblet when she saw a familiar dark head of hair at the door.

 _No,_ she thought. It couldn't be Eve Polastri, here in Bruges. And that twinge in Villanelle's stomach, near her scar, had nothing to do with any _feelings_ about shooting Eve and leaving her to maybe die in Rome. (She'd been pretty sure Eve wouldn't die--it was a tiny gun and a clean shot, of course she'd get better--but she'd checked online later anyway.) Because that wasn't Eve, entering the restaurant, definitely not with a short tan man who was wearing a green fedora with a pink feather, because Eve wouldn't come to Belgium, and Eve wouldn't be seen with such a loser, and then Villanelle remembered that that stupid fedora was how she was supposed to recognize one of the other two assassins, and she was furious that Eve was on a date with an assassin that wasn't her, and then she realized that Eve wasn't here on a date, she was one of the assassins sent here to help Villanelle kill a man, not that Villanelle needed the help, and the other was a douchebro in a fedora.

Villanelle hated teamwork, but she wanted to kill people with Eve Polastri. Or kill people for Eve Polastri. Or watch Eve Polastri killing people. And then a terrible thought struck her: had Eve been killing people without Villanelle? Had Eve been killing people with this fedora-wearing fuckwit? When she could have been killing people with Villanelle?

Villanelle rose to greet them with a fixed, fake smile, and a resolve that once the target was terminated, she was totally going to kill this man. If not before.

He didn't look happy to see her. "They want us to work with _you_?" he asked, as he sat down and flagged a waiter.

"I know," said Villanelle, smiling. "I never need backup." She turned and kissed Eve on both cheeks before Eve could react. "I like the new look."

"It's the same as the old look," said Eve, just as the fedora guy said, "You're not really French and you're not fooling anyone."

Definitely before.

"Villanelle," said Eve, "this is Guillaume."

Guillaume didn't stop dictating his order to the waiter in badly-accented French to acknowledge her, so Villanelle couldn't tell him that she was not enchantée in the least, and also his accent was horrible, and she hoped the waiter poisoned him for being such an ass.

Villanelle pulled out a chair for Eve. Eve raised an eyebrow at her, then sat in it, warily, like she thought Villanelle might pull it away as she sat, which would have been funny but not when Eve was already expecting it.

"So," said Villanelle, sitting down herself and flinging one leg over the other, chin propped up on one hand, "what made you change professions?" _Why were you so angry about chopping up Raymond, who was a threat to us and a total shit, but now here you are, another assassin for hire?_

"That little stunt you pulled?" asked Eve, accepting a glass of water from the waiter, smiling at him and taking a sip. "It got me fired from MI5." Her tone was way, way icier than the water she was drinking, and that had condensation frosted all over the glass. 

If they had been alone, Villanelle would have asked why she'd chosen to kill, really, what had changed her mind after Rome, and Raymond, and did she want to come back to Villanelle's hotel room with her, but Guillaume was there, and he didn't deserve to know those things about Eve. "Their loss." She ate another bite. "Hey, do you like soufflés? You should try their soufflés."

"I'm not hungry," Eve gritted out, but it was a lie, Villanelle could tell. She would order dessert for them both, no matter Eve’s entree. It would be a crime to miss out on this food.

"When are you going to tell me what our actual assignment is here?" Villanelle asked, spearing some chicken with her salad fork. "I've been waiting here long enough, I could have done some reconnaissance."

Eve and Guillaume exchanged a look that made Villanelle want to flip Guillaume's stupid hat off his stupid head. "I could have done the job myself, you two took so long."

Guillaume leaned across the table. "Are you really talking about our work here? In the open?"

"We're in Belgium," said Villanelle. "They don't speak English, they can barely speak French."

"I really don't think it works that way," Eve said. 

"We will discuss this tomorrow," Guillaume said, voice clipped, accent somehow even more ridiculous. "In a secure setting."

That sounded so stuffy and boring. A secure setting! "Oh, good," said Villanelle, "one more day with nothing to do but masturbate."

Behind her, a waiter tripped over his own feet and the plates he'd been carrying crashed into the neighboring table. Eve covered her mouth, but Villanelle thought she saw a hint of a smile beneath her hand.

She leaned over before Eve could stop her, her nose in Eve's hair, her mouth at Eve's ear, and murmured, "Perhaps you were right about them being able to understand English after all," and enjoyed the shocked burst of laughter Eve let out, before pulling away again.

Eve looked to Guillaume--Guillaume!--and then back at Villanelle. She really did not like that guy.

When Villanelle pointedly paid her own check and rose to go, both Eve and Guillaume stood with her, even though Guillaume's wine glass was untouched and Eve was only halfway through her soufflé.

"We're staying at the same inn that you are," said Guillaume. 

And that was not good, that they knew where she was staying. Why would they know that? Villanelle didn't, like, put her hands on her weapons or anything, but she felt better knowing they were there. "If you want to waste good food," she said, shrugging, "be my guest." It was a good thing Guillaume was so short. He would be easy to garrote.

Villanelle took care to make it seem like she was drunker than she actually was. Her heels clacked on the cobbled streets, and she might have stumbled into Eve a few times. "Hey," she said, the second time, her arm looping around Eve's waist. "I like your coat."

Guillaume gave her a disgusted look.

"Boiled wool, isn't it?"

"Yes," Eve said.

"It looks good on you."

Guillaume made a disgusted noise. Villanelle fantasized about pushing him into the canal.

"What are you doing here with him anyway? He is a major buzzkill."

"In case you didn't know," said Eve, moving a little faster, so that Villanelle had to fake-stumble to catch up, "I haven't been at this job for a very long time. It was considered prudent to have a seasoned professional here."

"I'm a seasoned professional," said Villanelle. She'd never had any sort of apprenticeship, she was a natural at killing people, but she could have taught Eve everything she knew, if Eve had wanted to learn it.

Eve gave her a look that she didn't know how to read, and disentangled herself.

Eve and Guillaume stopped on the second floor of the hotel, and Villanelle stopped too. "Are you sharing a room?" she asked, entirely horrified.

"It's a suite," said Eve, as Guillaume snapped, "It's none of your business."

It was Villanelle's business, though, it was. And she could definitely read the look Eve was giving her now, a look that said that not in a million years would she sleep with someone like Guillaume, but Villanelle had seen Eve's ex-husband, and she had _all_ the reasons in the world to doubt Eve's taste in men.

"Good night, Villanelle," Eve said firmly, and shut the door to the suite.

Even worse than the fact that they knew which building she was staying in, Villanelle realized, was that their suite door was right by the stairs, and considering the building was super old, they might be able to hear people going up and down. Did they think they were here to babysit her? Did they really not think she'd already figured out how to get out of her room through the window, or out of the building from the roof, or down the old servants' stairs that were supposed to be inaccessible under EU regulations because they were a death trap?

Of course they didn't. Eve was new at this, and Guillaume was the worst. He was probably vaping inside his suite, that was how literally the worst he was. Villanelle was going to take his vaping pen and shove it up one of his nostrils until it broke off in his brain.

The thought cheered her up, and she went into her room and took a long, hot shower, and when she got out of the bathroom, Eve was in her room.

"What are you doing here?" Villanelle wasn't so surprised that she dropped her towel on the floor. She just liked the way it made Eve's eyes go a little glassy and unfocused, like she was considering... things.

"I picked the lock," said Eve, breathlessly, like it was something you just said in casual conversation, and Villanelle felt a sudden warmth that had nothing to do with the shower she'd just left.

"And how long have you been there?" Villanelle asked, advancing on her.

Eve shook her head, her glorious hair swirling around her. "Long enough to realize what a good time you were having in that shower," she said dryly, her eyes fixed firmly on Villanelle's face.

"And you didn't come in and watch?" Villanelle suspected her hand felt very warm and very damp against Eve's skin, and she kind of wished she hadn't washed it off. "Or join me?"

"Did you want me to?"

"Oh," said Villanelle, leaning in to smell Eve's neck, "do you even need to--"

Eve grabbed her by the back of her skull. "You killed my best friend. You destroyed my career. Do you honestly think I would have sex with you?"

"Yes?" Villanelle, despite Eve's grip, leaned in closer, her nose touching Eve's temple now. She remembered Eve, still wet from the bath, shivering as Eve undressed her. The knife in her hand, the blade against Eve's skin. "Also, I ruined your marriage. I don't know why you left that out."

"I really don't think you can take all the credit for that," Eve said.

Villanelle nudged her nose along Eve's face. She smelled good. Like her shampoo and like the restaurant's soufflés. "I can take a little of the credit, but it's true, you did have a very boring sex life."

"I'll show you a boring sex life," said Eve, but it was a lie on two counts: one, she already had, Villenelle had seen what she and her husband got up to when they didn't bother to close the curtains; and two, it was not boring at all when Eve surged forward and kissed Villanelle.

Villanelle had known Eve would be a good kisser, but she congratulated herself on predicting it anyway. Eve's other hand settled on the small of Villanelle's back, and then she seemed to remember that Villanelle was naked. 

"Ugh," she said, letting go of Villanelle's hair, "you're getting me all wet."

"Already?"

Eve shot her an unamused look before pulling off her jumper. "I don't need you dripping all over me."

"If you don't like innuendo," said Villanelle, kneeling between Eve's jeans so she could stare at the bullet scar, "maybe you shouldn't keep giving me such good set-ups." The tissue was still pink, raised. She touched it. This was the mark she'd left on Eve's body, and now here Eve was, with her. They were going to have sex and then they were going to kill someone. Not even Guillaume could ruin how excited Villanelle was about that.

"Really?" Eve asked. 

Villanelle curled her hands around Eve's legs and kissed the scar. "Really. Did it hurt?"

"You shot me. Of course it hurt."

"Poor baby," said Villanelle, as she kissed her way up to Eve's underwire. "You stabbed me. It got infected. It was really gross. There was so much pus."

"Wow," said Eve. Her hands were back in Villanelle's hair, holding on tight while Villanelle unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down around her hips. "I don't think I've ever had anyone talk that kind of dirty to me before."

"I had this really high fever," said Villanelle, between kisses back down. "At one point I think I hallucinated you. Like, you stabbed me, and I think I was dying? But I wanted you there." She remembered calling, with the telephone. Demanding to speak to Eve Polastri. She slid her fingers under Eve's pants.

"I know," said Eve. "I came."

"What," said Villanelle, "already?"

Eve grabbed Villanelle's hands and forced them away. Her nails were uneven, like she'd been biting them. "You're incorrigible."

Villanelle considered this. It was a lot nicer than most of the words beginning with i that people used for her: impossible, irredeemable, insane. "And yet you are here."

"Here I am," sighed Eve. She lowered herself over Villanelle, staring her right in the eye. "I spent two weeks in the hospital. It didn't take them that long to stitch me back together. They were monitoring me for signs of sepsis, in case the bullet had sideswiped my digestive tract and was causing me to leak shit into my abdominal category."

"Hot," said Villanelle. "Did they put you on the good drugs?"

"I was, as I believe the expression goes, tripping balls," Eve said, her grip still tight on Villanelle's wrists. "At no point did I ever call out for you."

Villanelle could feel her face making a face she did not like, a face she didn't want anyone to ever see her making, and Eve pushed her down on the floor, hands pinned to either side of her head. She was sitting across Villanelle's chest and the denim was rough against Villanelle's skin. "Okay, now I am definitely making your pants went," she said, because the only other choice was to say, _I cried out for you_ , like the baby she'd been when Anna wouldn't speak to her at her trial, wouldn't even look her way.

"If you want this," Eve said, completely ignoring the innuendo, "we're doing this my way, okay?"

"I can do that." Villanelle was usually in charge. She liked being in charge. But this was kind of hot too, Eve straddling her, Eve making demands. She certainly wasn't the same person who had apologized immediately after stabbing Villanelle. She was the woman who'd tracked her down, who'd taken up a letter opener to use as a weapon on Aaron Peel, who'd split Raymond's head in half with an axe. Villanelle liked all those Eves. The only Eve she didn't like was the one turning and walking away from her.

Also, this was a really great view. "I'm really, really good at following directions," she added, hopefully. 

"Somehow I doubt that." But Eve got up and pulled off her jeans, then her underwear, and finally unhooked her bra. "Get on the bed, now."

Villanelle took a few short steps and spread herself out all over the duvet. "That was easy. Are all your directions going to be this easy?"

Eve was looking down at her, and then away. She swallowed like she liked what she saw there, scar tissue and all. "You're not allowed to touch yourself until I give you permission," she said, and it was a challenge. It was a fucking dare.

Villanelle warred against the idea of needing anyone's permission for anything, but then she realized she didn't, not really. She was giving Eve the ability to choose for her, but she could take it back any time she liked. "Okay," she said, moving her hands to back beneath her head, and hooking her legs up. "Do you need an invitation or something?" 

"No," said Eve, and sat on her face.

Villanelle gave a muffled shout of delight. She was sure that if she'd protested, Eve would have said something about it being the only way to shut her up, but the joke was on Eve, because Eve was going to be so loud that everyone else on Villanelle's floor was going to be complaining to the manager in the morning. She started light, teasing, wanting to make Eve beg her. Wanting to make Eve curse her. Wanting to show Eve that she was good at this, that no one could ever be as good at this as Villanelle was, certainly not Eve's ex-husband, definitely not her fedora’d fuckwit of a partner. Eve swore and grabbed the headboard so hard Villanelle could hear the wood groan, and Villanelle wasn't even done yet, she wasn't even started. When this was all over, she vowed to herself, there was no way Eve was ever going to leave her again.

What actually happened was that when it was over, Eve climbed off her and went off to shower. Villanelle lay back on the bed, panting, aching. She wiped a strand of her hair off of her face, and then smelled her own fingers with a smile. She didn't want to wash off any time soon. She wanted to walk into the briefing tomorrow smelling like Eau de Eve. Eve wouldn't be able to stop looking at her. Guillaume would be so annoyed he'd be distracted and wouldn't notice her jabbing him with a poisoned needle. And then she and Eve could kill the mark together, collect more money without Guillaume there to take his share, and go see some of the art museums in Bruges. They had some really great paintings of medieval tortures. 

Eve came out of the bathroom, the second of the hotel's cheap, thin towels wrapped around her hair. Villanelle smiled. Of course she got off on being withholding.

"Hey," she said. "You never gave me permission to touch myself."

Eve smiled. She had a really great smile. "Nope," she said, and began picking up her clothing from the hotel room floor.

Villanelle took in a deep breath, held it to the count of ten so she didn't scream. "That's okay. I got off plenty of times in the shower earlier."

Eve's smiled turned a little softer, a little nicer. "I know," she said, putting her bra back on. Villanelle would have offered to help, if Eve had given her permission to come. "I heard you."

She shook off the towel, pulled her turtleneck on, and walked out the door.

Villanelle dropped her head back onto the pillows, her breathing a little steadier, her hands outstretched. "Fuck," she said, to herself and the ceiling and no one at all.

In the morning, Eve wasn't down at the continental breakfast, which was her loss. Villanelle ate three danishes and a grapefruit and a lot of melon balls and drank a big cup of black coffee.

Guillaume was there, complaining noisily about the croissants.

"Of course they suck," said Villanelle, dipping a cheese danish into her coffee. "That's why I'm not eating any of them. You could have had a muffin. You could have had waffles. You could have had a fruit cup. You chose the Belgian croissants."

"It's not difficult," said Guillaume, "to make a decent croissant."

Villanelle popped a melon ball into her mouth. "Now who is not fooling anyone about not really being French?"

He looked like he wanted to kill her. She gave him her most annoying smile, and went to get another cup of coffee.

Finally, when Guillaume had finished moaning about the croissants, it was time to go up to his suite, where they would go away over who it was they were here to kill, and how they were going to do it. Villanelle suspected Guillaume would want to do things the dumb and boring way. Poor Eve, it was like working with the dullest and ugliest of accountants when she could have been working with a sexy and exciting artist.

She picked up a chocolate eclair and another cup of coffee for Eve. "I think she might be hungry," she whispered to Guillaume, as they took the stairs back up. "And thirsty. She definitely seems like a thirsty person."

Guillaume glared at her. Villanelle smiled. She liked smiling. She'd been told it annoyed people a lot.

Eve, however, did not look hungry, or thirsty. She looked slightly nauseous, which Villanelle guessed was what came of being in close proximity to Guillaume for more than thirty minutes. "Thanks," she said, setting the coffee and eclair down on the side table. "I'll have them later."

 _You know what else you could have later_ , Villanelle wanted to stay, but she'd prefer to be the only one who saw Eve blush, who saw her eyes go unfocused, her expression get soft and incredibly horny. Instead she plopped down on the couch, spread her arms along its back, and crossed her legs. "So," she said, "tell me who we're here to kill already."

And Guillaume pulled a fucking gun from his khakis and pointed it at her and said, "You."

Well, shit.

"Ha!" he spat. "It's like you had no idea, you little--you little lice!"

"Louse," Villanelle corrected him. 

Eve gave her a look like _what the fuck are you doing_ , and Villanelle shrugged, and Guillaume didn't even seem to notice. He was puce in the face and waving the gun around like a mad man, and it really was not a good look on him. "You creeping parasite! You don't take orders, you kill your handlers, you draw unnecessary attention to yourself! The Twelve is sick of the messes you make! Do you know how much your death is worth to them? Do you know how handsomely I'll be reward--"

His head exploded in a spray of bone and blood and brain matter. It was a much better look for him.

Eve lowered her pistol.

"Nice shot," said Villanelle, as Guillaume's body swayed in place and then toppled across the coffee table, his torso landing on the cushion next to Villanelle.

Eve vomited. It probably was a good thing she hadn't had breakfast first.

Villanelle got up from the sofa, which was getting gross from all the leaking, and rubbed Eve's back. She'd heard somewhere that it was supposed to be soothing, but mostly she wanted to touch Eve. It was very nice of Eve to have saved her life, even if Villanelle had really, really wanted to be the one to kill Guillaume. But maybe it was better this way. Konstantin had told her she needed to learn how to share with others.

"Hey," she said, when Eve stopped shaking, "did you know that the two of you were here to kill me?"

"Uh," said Eve. "Can I have some coffee before I answer that? I did just kill a man."

That wasn't a no, but whatever. She got Guillaume's gun, even though it was a crap gun, first, and then she brought Eve her coffee and eclair.

"Thanks," Eve said, and took a sip of the coffee. Her hands were shaking all over again. She was still not used to killing people, Villanelle thought, which was a shame, because she was good at it. "Yes, I knew. I was going to tell you last night. But then I got distracted. And then I got angry, because you shot me, and you weren't sorry."

"So you were going to let him kill me because I didn't apologize for shooting you? He was way worse than me. He put almond milk in his coffee _and_ he vaped."

Eve shook her head, and took a bite of the eclair. "God, that's good. And no, I wasn't going to-- When he drew the gun--I couldn't let him kill you. I'm not really an assassin."

"You just haven't had enough practice. But once you do, I bet you'll be really, really good at--"

"I'm undercover," Eve interrupted, and stashed her gun in the back of her pants like she'd been watching too many Bond films. "I was going to find out what I could about the Twelve from working with Guillaume. But he didn't let much slip, and after last night--after you did what I asked you to--it occurred to me that you'd be a much more valuable asset. And if you make one joke about your ass being valuable--"

"I would never," said Villanelle solemnly. "Because it is. How much were the Twelve paying you to kill me anyway?"

"I'm not telling you that." Eve shoved the rest of the eclair in her mouth and washed it down with coffee. "But it was a lot of money. And they're not going to stop at this. So your best option is to turn yourself over to MI5 and ask for witness protection, like Konstantin did."

When she put it like that, it was extremely not tempting. Konstantin would give Villanelle so much shit for doing the smart, self-preserving thing. "Or I could kill the Twelve myself.”

"Uh-huh," said Eve. "You, on your own, versus an international criminal organization with infinite resources. I'm sure that's going to go really great."

Villanelle pouted. "But I won't be on my own." She leaned in close to Eve, brushed Eve's collarbone with her lips. "Will I?"

Eve shivered beneath her mouth. "MI5 might be able to finance your killing spree."

"Really?" Villanelle nuzzled in closer. Eve's fingers clamped around her wrist. 

"You are not," she said, moving Villanelle's hand as far from their bodies as it could go, "taking my gun."

"You are really good at this. Come with me, and it's a deal."

Eve looked at her. "Is that really your price? I help you, and you'll help MI5?"

Villanelle smiled, and it didn't seem to annoy Eve at all. "When I said come with me, I meant--"

"Shut up," Eve said, and kissed her.


End file.
